


On The Road

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: gameofcards, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 16:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She grins back at him, raises an eyebrow speculatively. "Don't you want to play with me, Mr. Dixon?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Road

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a photo prompt challenge (an open road) for LJ's gameofcards community.
> 
> * * *

Flatlands. All they've seen for the last five miles, all they'll see for the next five. Miles and miles of farmland gone to rot and fallow fields trampled by the dead. 

Daryl bites his lip, tries not to fidget in his seat. The barren landscape is good for the group, he knows. He still wakes up occasionally from nightmares about getting trapped in the warehouse complex, of hearing the screams reverberating off the metal shipping containers, of darting this way and that, walkers at every turn blocking his path. Getting out on the open road after that, two months after Terminus burned to the ground – a month and a half after they'd found Beth crouched over the carcass of the boar and he had that one heart-stopping nausea-inducing moment of believing that she was turned – the wide-open countryside is exactly what they need. 

But without a distraction out the windshield, there is nothing for him to focus on. Nothing but the pretty blonde sitting in the passenger seat with one leg curled beneath her, the breeze from the open window blowing her unkempt hair back from her face. 

He side-glances her and like usual she catches him watching, grins at him. "What?" she asks.

He lifts a shoulder and turns his attention back to the road. Because he knows how easy it is to get absentminded around Beth Greene, to find himself thinking about how soft her hair is even after months on the road, how she somehow smells like ginger and sweetgrass, how sweet her lips taste. How she unconsciously curls her hand on his chest and throws one leg over his when she falls into a deep sleep, no matter where they are, sure and safe with him.

"You wanna put in a CD?" she asks, reaching for the backpack at her feet.

"Broken."

Beth sighs, flops back onto the cracked leather seat. Truth be told, he'd rather listen to the sound of the wheels turning on the pavement and her soft, even breathing than the so-called "music" she picked up in that house in Stanton. Or even better, he'd rather listen to her voice drifting through the warm afternoon air.

He's turning to her to suggest it when she raises an eyebrow. "We could play a game."

He snorts, turns back to the road. Blacktop and more blacktop, to the horizon and beyond. Not a walker in sight. "That didn't work out so good last time."

When she says nothing he glances back toward her, catches her slow, easy smile. 

"Yes," she says. "It did."

For a moment he's transported back to the moonlit porch, to the sour taste of moonshine in his mouth and Beth's watery but determined smile. Hears things coming out of his mouth that he never told a living soul, and never would again. Feels again the first tentative glimmerings of his love for her. And he can only nod in agreement. 

Daryl eases the old truck into a turn, somewhat hopeful for a glimpse of something new on the stretch of road. But there is only more concrete meeting the sky, more empty fields populated by the occasional rambling and derelict farmhouse. In an hour or so they'll pull up into the driveway of a likely prospect, clear out any walkers stuck inside and make camp for the night. If they're lucky there will be enough rooms for some privacy, but it is more likely that he will flake out on his back in a corner of the living room with Beth curled against his side. And at some point in the night, her leg will creep over his. The prospect still warms him. 

"I spy with my little eye something that is… green," Beth says.

Daryl groans. "Couldn't be grass, could it?"

"You're good at this one," Beth says with a giggle. "There's always that game – Daddy always used to try to get me and Maggie to play it on road trips? Where you have to find a license plate that starts with every letter of the alphabet. That'd probably keep us goin' 'til we get to the Northwest Territories, never mind DC."

Daryl glances at an old wreck pushed to the side of the road, one of the few they've passed in the last few hours. The license plate has been obliterated by rust and dirt, but when he squints he thinks the first letter might have been a K. He shakes his head, can't help grinning at her. "You're crazy, Greene."

"I'm not crazy, I'm bored," she says. She grins back at him, raises an eyebrow speculatively. "Don't you want to play with me, Mr. Dixon?" 

She doesn't wait for a response, just stretches out her legs, wipes at the nape of her neck and then ducks her head out the window to catch the breeze. Daryl allows himself a single appreciative glance at her curve of her spine, the press of her breasts against her filthy tank top and the damp hair curling around her ears. Then he makes himself return his attention to the road. 

He senses her watching him out of the corner of his eye when she tumbles back into the seat, but he deliberately doesn't look over. He's not going to be responsible for running the damn truck off the road.

Then she reaches over and palms his dick through his jeans, and he nearly sends them into the ditch.

He yanks on the wheel, smells burning rubber just as Rick in the car behind him slams a fist on the horn. The old truck wobbles over the centre line for another thirty feet before he can finally get it under control. 

"Fuck," he breathes out.

Beth just bats her eyelashes, smiles at him teasingly. "Here? The steering wheel might be a bit of a problem, but I'm game to try if you are!"

He huffs out a laugh, checks the rearview and thinks he can see Tyreese shaking his head at him from the passenger seat of the Suburban. He's not sure, but he thinks Tyreese might be laughing. He wonders if the two of them might have some inkling of what caused his little bobble on the road, if they might be discussing it right now with Maggie and Glenn. 

Then he decides he just doesn't care. 

"You're crazy, Greene," he says again.

"Maybe," Beth concedes. "But you love me anyway."

He takes her hand, entwines her fingers with his and waits until she smiles, leans against the headrest and closes her eyes. They have an open road ahead of them, an endless vista of possibilities. And maybe, just maybe, a little privacy at the end of this long drive.


End file.
